Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Check out the video for the basic introduction to the baking process for normal maps. I cover the entire process from start to finish for baking high poly geometry normal map information down to a low poly.http://vimeo.com/7305572

You can also download the xNormal filter here - http://www.xnormal.net/Downloads.aspx
Once you are inside of Photoshop, you will find the xNormal filter under Filter > xNormal > Height2Normals. Here are some of my basic settings for "average" hand painted normal map stuff. When playing with the amounts in xNormal, don't forget to keep clicking the "Update" button to see a preview of your changes.

Ever find yourself having attached a bunch of stuff together and wanted to go back and re-explode the mesh? Do you hate having to find each individual Element and clicking "Detach" a thousand times? This script fixes that.

If you want to showcase your model with a render from 3ds Max, there are a few things you can do to improve the overall quality of the render so that it doesn't look so bland. These are some basic suggested settings that should get you started. Once you are comfortable with these settings, feel free to tweak them until you get something that works for you.

1. Start by changing the render filter to Catmull-Rom, and turn on the Global Supersamplers. (F10 to bring this menu up, under the Renderer tab) The settings below are the settings I generally use:

2. Next up, lets create a ground plane so that we can get some shadows for our object. Start by creating a Plane, and place it directly underneath your prop. It doesn't matter how many iterations or edges it has, and the size only needs to be a bit bigger than the object, so that any shadows that are cast onto it can fit.

3. Once you have made the plane object, choose an empty Material slot in the Material browser, click the "Standard" button and change this to "Matte/Shadow", and apply this to your ground plane. This material tells the ground plane to receive shadows, but will not be seen once we go to render the scene.

4. The next step is to create a Light to shine on your object. Under the Standard Lights, create a Target Directional Light and aim it at your prop. Here you can adjust the color, multiplier, (which is the light brightness) as well as the Hotspot and Falloff settings. You want to ensure that the beam fully covers your object. These are my settings for my light:

5. Once I have created my first light, I generally like to copy that light and have it pointing somewhat in the opposite direction. (Select the light, and hold down Shift and drag it across to copy it) This will ultimately be used to offset the light intensity and keep us from having pure black shadows. This is a basic 2-point light setup.

6. Once the two lights are in place, I will open the Light Lister (On the main Tool List, choose Tools > Light Lister) From here, I can manually adjust my lights without having to go back and forth in the scene.

7. With the light lister open, I will adjust a few things - I turn Shadows on for the primary light and increase the Map Size resolution, ensure there are NO shadows for the secondary light. Also, you want to change the multiplier so that they aren't casting the same amount of light. I generally do at least half brightness (or less) for the secondary. I also give my lights a little bit of subtle color (don't over-do it!)

8. That's it! Frame your object and render. Feel free to adjust any of the light brightness or colors to improve your renders...but you should have a nicely lit object in your scene with shadow casting.

Monday, September 21, 2009

1. To begin with, save your scene as something else. Call it "Wireframe_Render". If something breaks, you can always go back.2. Select everything in your scene, Right-click > Convert to Editable Poly. 3. Start by attaching all of your pieces together so that you have only 1 mesh. You can do this easily by selecting any piece of your object and using the Attach function.

4. Once everything is attached, create a new flat gray-shaded material and apply it to your object. Give it a little specularity if you want for flavor. To do this, open the material browser (hotkey M) and with your object selected, click the Assign Material to Selection button.

5. Make a copy of your object and name it Wireframe_Object or something that you can remember. To quickly copy your object, press Control + V with your object selected.

6. With your Wireframe_Object still selected, apply a Lattice modifier to it and adjust some of the parameters. See the screenshot below for my settings. (The Radius amount will differ depending on the size of your object)

Sunday, September 20, 2009

For your daily dose of free textures, visit these sites! CGTextures.comMayang's Texture libraryKeep in mind there is a daily limit on how much you can download, so get into the habit of getting all you can each day to build up your texture library!

Here is a link to a Photoshop brush set I have collected over the years. It has a lot of good scratches, stains, and grime brushes all in one set.To install, simply drag and drop this into your \\Program Files\Adobe\(Photoshop Version you have)\Presets\Brushes folder, and open it like you normally would in Photoshop to use the brushes.Enjoy!